You can squeeze that tube, but don’t take it for granted

Didja know that the first ready-made paint was sold by colormen in pig’s bladders which you punched a hole in to get the paint out and then sealed with a tack? Yeah, us neither. Fortunately for all the vegetarians out there, and those of us who are easily grossed out, the American portrait painter John Goffe Rand invented the collapsible metal tube in 1841. If you think that doesn’t matter much to ya, think about it the next time you’re brushing your teeth ’cause the first toothpaste tubes were inspired by paint tubes.

“My invention related to a mode of preserving paints and other fluids by confining them in a close metallic vessel so constructed as to collapse with slight pressure and thus force out the paint or fluid contained therein… a screw-cap as is show, by which means the fluid contained can be from time to time removed and the end closed air-tight by the cap.” – John G Rand’s patent for the invention of the paint tube